Consultant, Business Analyst specialising in Mobile Banking and Payments.

Tag Archives: Pune

Since I have recently shifted from Gurgaon to Pune, I decided that I need to give up my old Vodafone connection and take up a new local connection. As I was pretty happy with the service of Vodafone in Gurgaon (and in Pune) I thought it will be better if I get the connection deactivated legally (and not just throw away the SIM).

Also, since I want to take up a Vodafone connection in Pune as well, I also wanted to know if Vodafone would be interested in shifting my old connection details to the new number that I take here in Pune. After all, wouldn’t it be more profitable for them to retain an existing (relatively) high-paying customer (my average monthly bills are usually in the range of 600-800) without incurring any costs on the acquisition? (I got a B+ in the Customer Relationship Management course in college, but surely this is a more common sense approach to building “lasting customer relationships”) 😉
Anyways, back to the point. The customer service rep flatly told me that there is no way that my existing customer profile can be shifted to Pune. I would need to get a new connection here and that may or may not be a Vodafone connection. He also told me that I will need to send them a letter (not an email, a letter) asking for the current connection to be deactivated. After I almost laughed at his face and flatly told him that I am not going to go through the trouble of writing a letter for them, he agreed to make do with an email from me (though a fax would be still preferable for them). He also took down a request from me regarding this and promised to get back to me in 72 hours (or so i thought).

In case you didn’t know, Vodafone cares such a lot about “prompt” service for its customers. After putting down the phone, I got a confirmation message from Vodafone regarding my request. This is what the SMS says:

“Hello! Your service request number is xxxxxxx. We shall respond to your query by Thursday 05-Jun-08 06:00 p.m.“

ROTFL.

Maybe, I misheard the guy on the phone. Maybe he said 72 days and not 72 hours. But still, do they seriously expect me to hold on to this connection (and pay HUGE roaming bills) till June??

(p.s. It seems that Windows Live does not allow comments without first logging on (I had no clue till now). I am in the process of shifting to another domain, till then, drop me a mail plz :))

My answers to this have varied from “I was born in a, did my schooling from b,c and d, engineering from e, worked inf. And ooh… BTW my parents are from g and h. So what is the color of Saturn’s third moon?” to anything from Kashmir to Kanyakumari (usually to random people sitting across me in trains, planes or buses).

I mean, how the hell are you supposed to answer such a question?

If the person who has asked the question is from anywhere between a and h, you can usually expect a barrage of questions and/or sweet memories of that place. which you will generally have no clue about. And if you are as bad as me in remembering routes, names etc., you will understand what I am talking about.

I mean I have been living in Gurgaon for the past 18 months now. But the only places I can go to without asking anyone for the route is the Sec-14 market and the 3 malls between iffco chowk and Sahara mall (am still confused between the names of the other two malls).

So the next time you are in Gurgaon/Pune/Anywhere else and want me to meet you in DLF Phase Whatever… please be prepared to give me detailed instructions about how to reach there.

And as far as the “where are you from?” question is concerned… the next time someone asks me that i am going to say Frogstar World B… and subject the questioner to a Total Perspective Vortex. Let me see you survive that.